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When Brad Ausmus manages the Detroit Tigers against the New York Yankees - as he will tonight in Tampa - he's facing the team that drafted him out of high school.

The Yankees picked him in the 48th round in 1987. Ausmus planned to start college at Dartmouth that fall.

"I was a draft-and-follow, and they offered me a minimal contract and told me not to sign, because they were going to watch me play during the summer," Ausmus said Thursday. "A couple of weeks before I was scheduled to go to school, they made a more legitimate offer with the caveat that I could go to my full freshman year." ...